Jake Humphreys has become a fine broadcaster, though not so good that he can turn up for work at the BBC without a shirt.

You could never imagine Steve Rider, for example, presenting F1 coverage while dressed like Michael Douglas in his steamy Basic Instinct dance scene with Sharon Stone. Remember that awful clinging sweater when you did not need Sensoramato smell the body odour?

That was Humphrey during Saturday qualifying in Japan. Mercifully, he had acquired a shirt for race day. Pity about the jeans, which I suppose rather go with falling standards and attempts to attract a younger audience.

Slick: Jake Humphrey eats at a Japanese restaurant with Adrian Sutil of Force India F1 team

Hopeful: But Jenson Button's pre-race calm was replaced with not many points - and no title just yet

Humphrey, though, is as slick as a grand prix tyre. And he is more than ably assisted in the paddock by those twin opinion carburettors, David Coulthard and Eddie Jordan, or DC and EJ as they appear to be known.

Both know their stuff, despite occasional BS intrusions. They knew, for example, that Jenson Button was not going to win the world title yesterday, a view that rather scuppered BBC attempts to build up the Suzuka race into a crunch occasion.

They were pretty convinced that Brawn was going to secure the constructors’ championship. That did not happen either. So, viewers without the technology to watch ‘as live’ at a reasonable hour and at their own convenience would have felt pretty miffed at getting up at 5am to see a Sebastian Vettel victory, a pretty spectacular Jaime Alguersuari crash and Mark Webber having a problem with his headrest.

And that was about it. Rubens Barrichello rather gave the game away when interviewed by Lee McKenzie. She had suggested that the introduction of the safety car with nine laps to go had made for an exciting finish.

‘Not really,’ the veteran Brazilian replied. ‘It is pretty difficult to overtake in F1.’ In fact, even bumper to bumper during the final four laps of flat-out racing, not a single car managed a successful overtaking manoeuvre. Racing anything, but especially cars, is surely nothing without overtaking.

'As it was, just about the only overtaking manoeuvre (failed) of any consequence allowed Button to edge closer to the world title that will surely be his in two weeks or four. ‘Dream ticket for Jenson Button,’ remarked Martin Brundle, the best of theBeeb’s dream team.